Primal Calendar and Challenger

First Quarter Moon (Photograph by Dr. Joe Daglen)

Dear old friends and new,

The dates of Passover and Easter are determined by it as is the new year for Earth’s millions, it’s a deity, the mysterious mover of ocean tides, the muse of poets and lovers, the alleged cause of lunacy, the Great Lost and Found Department, it’s crescent shape with a star the symbol of Islam, the second day of the week bears its name and it is the focal point at every birthday party! This extremely important “it” is of course the Moon. It’s now shrunken some from the largest appearing full Moon of the year just a few nights ago. You are fortunate if you live where you can observe the various phases of Earth’s natural satellite. Since that awesome “first night” Earthlings have pondered its powers, told legends and spoke of it in holy scrolls whose Sanskrit and ancient Greek name “menas” means month. The great Greek philosopher Aristotle argued that the influence of the full moon caused insanity, as the brain was mostly water. His disciples are legion who rejecting scientific evidence still hold that the full moon causes mental ills, homicides, car accidents and suicides. So how did Earth acquire this influential largest natural satellite in the Solar System? The present theory is that 4.5 billion years ago when Earth was in its infancy a wandering giant asteroid the size of Mars crashed headlong into Earth! Instead of splitting Earth apart, it caused enormous chunks of earth to blast outward into space and fuse together to create the Moon. Its heavy pocked marked face of craters testifies to ages past bombardments by large asteroids. Tonight go out and look up and see the Moon as a migrant from Earth, since Apollo lunar rocks reveal the Moon and Earth share the same composition. The next time you lose anything, instead of praying to St. Anthony, the patron saint of lost things, ask the Man in the Moon! Legend holds that everything lost on Earth goes to the Moon—wasted time, broken vows, unfulfilled wishes and even car keys. At the next birthday party see as holy the round moon-shaped birthday cake. In ancient Greek tradition, it honors Artemis the Moon goddess and the cake’s small candles are symbols of those aflame in her honor in temples. You are guaranteed the favor of the Goddess by blowing out all of them in one breath. We see only one side or face of the Moon because of its synchronous rotation with Earth, which inspired the Mississippi River philosopher Mark Twain to say, “Everyone is a moon, and has a dark side which he never shows to anyone!” Challenge: Is that true of you?

Reclaiming Your Heritage

In the Cosmos before numbers, clocks, time, Earth or Sun, a vast vaporous gas cloud began collapsing under its own weight spinning ever faster as it spread into a flat disk shape, with an enormous smoldering crimson red center. Hundreds of millions years later the heart of the flattened gas cloud began glowing ever more brilliantly white until it exploded in a sustained thermonuclear fire—our Day Star, the Sun, was born! Anonymous among the hundreds of billions of other stars, yet it was destined to shine for ten billion years.

Photograph of condensing hydrogen gas taken by Dr. Joe Daglen, a former student and friend.

Around this baby star, however, blazed a blizzard of inestimable giant rocky asteroids frequently colliding with one another in a nightmare of unimaginable violence. Some were deadly head-on collisions where the two exploded into fiery bits and pieces. Some were crashes merging the two asteroids as one into a new larger body, while a few of these giant asteroids fortunately escaped by discovering safe orbits around the Sun. One of these lucky ones was Earth. Planet Earth continued to be battered by bombardments of smaller asteroids, but over the millions of years these collision scar craters cosmetically became oceans and valleys. Meanwhile Earth was being vastly enriched from massive donations from space of organic matter. Today all life on Earth runs on Sun energy, every atom on earth was once—out there! Coal and wood are but harvested ancient Sun star energy. On the upcoming Solar Birthday of our day star Sun, rejoice it’s only middle aged and contrary to apocalyptic prophecies will shine for another 5 billion years. Early this Friday morning, June 21st, will occur the Summer Solstice as the tilt of planet earth’s semi-axis is the most inclined towards the Sun. The Romans observed the Solstice on June 24th like other pagans with great bonfires, dancing and feasting. Unable to suppress this pagan, raucously joyful summer holiday the Church baptized it “The Feast of John the Baptist” and shrewdly included in that holy bath the enchanting pagan revelry. As early as the 5th century the Church declared it as one of the highest feast days. Unfortunately—and unhappily—today instead of celebrating the Solstice we work or go about our daily routines. Having become an “indoors” people divorced from the cycles of nature we’ve forgotten our hereditary primal holy day of bonfires, feasting, drinking, dancing and, in puritanical abstinence, work instead of play. A proposal: Reclaim your heritage of this ageless June Sun holiday. Celebrate it by having fun, by having a sun party or picnic. And don’t forget the symbolic sun—the bonfire—even if it is only a candle flame. To assist you in this hereditary renewal is a ritual blessing I’ve taken from my book Prayers for a Planetary Pilgrim: A Personal Manual for Prayer and Ritual.

The Ritual of the Summer Solstice Fire Holy is this fire of midsummer's eve, and holy are you, 0 God, who from your burning heart drew forth a fiery ball and flung it into space. Your laughter shook the empty cosmos and echoed again and again until the darkness of space resounded with your love and with fire. You reached in again and drew forth fire and seeded it like yeast in each atom, plant and animal, each bird, fish, man and woman. And you gave us a special star, our sun, aflame with a life-evoking energy to make our planet green and fertile sun-soaked in your love. As we celebrate this magic feast, open our eyes to the countless wonders and to the sparks of fire-life that you have planted in each of us. May this holy and magical night be aglow with star-fire and God-light as we once again begin the sacred season of summer. Amen+

P.S. If you’re not into rituals or prayers, I offer you a simple mini ceremony for sunrise on Friday, June the 21st or Monday, the 24th. Midsummer folklore held that at sunrise on the Solstice, the Sun briefly pauses tiptoe on the horizon and winks at Earth! I suggest on the Solstice when you first see the Sun at sunrise or whenever, pause briefly, and with a big wide smile wink back at the sun!

Look with a Hundred Eyes

Dear old and new friends,

Take 30 seconds to stare intently at the center of this American quilt which was anonymously created in the 1880’s.

Are your eyes playing tricks on you so that the static red needlework design appears to swirl around and towards the center? If so, and you can’t trust your eyes, what can you trust? The fact that your eyes can’t be trusted is what magicians rely upon to perform their tricks since the human eye can be made to see what isn’t there…or fail to see what is. Scribbled on a public restroom wall in San Rafael, California, was this graffiti, “The world is composed of rival gangs of hypnotists each competing for our entranced attention.” The location chosen for this bit of folk wisdom shouldn’t prevent us from exploring if indeed someone is trying to hypnotize us. The San Rafael’s restroom wall insight should prompt the question: Are we being hypnotized by marketing magicians whose spellbinding advertisements try to induce us to buy what we don’t need? Has some politician with personal magnetism and enthralling campaign played upon our fears of strangers and prejudice towards the poor and thus caused us to vote for him or her? Condemning the hypnotists of the media, politics or religion shouldn’t divert us from the possibility that each of us can also be guilty of practicing self-hypnosis. Pop culture self-help teachers propose to those suffering the raw realities of life the use of the repetition of generalizations like, “I’m alright, you’re alright, everything is alright” or “Day by day in every way I’m getting better and better.” Like snake oil medicine, this cure goes down smoothly instead of the real healing that comes from honestly confronting life’s painful realities. This reflection began about trusting our eyes and ends with the old adage, “A buyer needs a hundred eyes and the seller none.” This folk wisdom is good advice on how to escape from magnetic merchandizing ads alluring us to acquire something that in reality we have no need of. Such sage hundredfold sight can help you escape from being a fatality of mesmerizing mischief or hypnotic manipulation.

A Daredevil's Game - Playing with God

Dear old and new friends, Summer = no school = time to play. As a child my favorite game was “Hide and Seek” where, unlike today’s highly organized team sports of children, no uniforms or coaches were required. For the uninitiated, the game of “Hide and Seek” has kids hide in the surroundings. Before they do, one of them is designated as “It,” and after counting aloud to ten goes in search for the others. The first hidden player found shouts for all to come out of hiding with the bewildering saying, “Ollie ollie oxen free.” Many speculate this is an Americanization of the German phrase, “Alles alles auch so ein frei,” meaning “everyone, everyone else is also free.” It’s a gift to us like the Christmas tree from the German immigrants to our country. Anthropologists think “Hide and Seek” is the most prehistoric of all games played by the early humans! A close second surely is “Peekaboo,” a game played with babies. In it an older child or adult hides his or her face from the baby’s view and then suddenly appears saying “Peekaboo, I see you!” The baby must be eight to nine months old to play it, the age when an infant acquires the mental ability to comprehend that objects have permanence. But the really primeval game combines “Peekaboo” and “Hide and Seek,” first played by our Greatest Grandfather Adam in Eden and continues to be played even today. Whenever one does something wrong, they seek to hide unseen behind a batch of flabby excuses or piously sit in the front pew at public worship. But “It”—who is God—gleefully shouts, “Peekaboo, I see you,” then hugs you with tender affectionate pardon. As a spiritual seeker, you are “It”…and it is God’s turn to hide—usually right in front of your eyes in a dreadful disaster, at a joyous wedding dance, inside an old tin shack by the tracks or in a same sex marriage. Discerning, even if only faintly, your hidden Divine Beloved, you shout, “Peekaboo, I see You”—and God squeals joyfully like a baby. “Hide and Seek” is the game of mystics whose eyes see the unseen. But it isn’t necessary to be a mystic to play, everyone is urged to as the Holy Book says, “I was his delight day by day, playing before him all the while, playing on the surface of his earth….” (Proverbs 8: 30-31.) The speaker here is interrupted as the spirit of Wisdom. Yet, in this ancient Game of Games no one sits on the bench, everyone plays, be they mystics or the mystified, the bamboozled or the blessed, believers or doubters. But beware: Only daredevils play this game since you become what you play, and having God as a playmate is addictive!The Game of Mystic Merriment Stop in front of any glorious blooming bush, breath in deeply and look intently at it—and then with glee mischievously exclaim, “Peekaboo, I see YOU!”

Edward Hays

Haysian haphazard thoughts on theinvisible and visible mysteries of life.